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We reported some pretty nasty numbers from the Mortgage Bankers Association yesterday: A 51% rise in new foreclosures nationwide to the highest rate in the history of the MBA survey. And it’s a big bad number like that that is going to add more fuel to the fire in Washington among all those folks who have been bandying about the idea of some kind of government...

Fallout from the U.S. housing slump on mortgage and real estate companies deepened Tuesday, as title insurer First American and subprime lender NovaStar Financial announced job cuts and NovaStar's auditor expressed doubt that the company will survive.

An excellent source, Janet Tavakoli, who knows more about the credit markets and asset-backed securities than I ever ever want to, sent me the following note over the holiday weekend. I consider it worth sharing, despite its conclusion, with which some may disagree. Not my place to take a side, but I do think, on the blog, opinions, especially from someone of her caliber, are worth sharing...

After watching for weeks as the mortgage meltdown roiled the markets and squeezed homeowners, President Bush inserted himself directly into the matter today. It remain unclear how much his intervention will help investors, lenders or homeowners. But there's no mystery about why he did it.

The hot topic on the Street is the probability of a recession. Robert Albertson, chief strategist at Sandler O'Neill, and this morning Angelo Mozillo, CEO of Countrywide both voiced fears that a recession was coming. Opinions are sharply divided on this. David Bianco, UBS' Equity Strategist, said earlier this month that the S&P seems to be signaling a "financial sector recession" (i.e. that a recession is expected to mostly affect financial sector profits).

Former AOL executive Stephen M. Swad has become the new chief financial officer at mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae, the company said Wednesday. Swad's succession as finance chief, replacing Robert Blakely, had been planned for some time. Blakely stepped down as its chief financial officer last Friday but remains an executive vice president.

The U.S. mortgage and credit crisis deepened on Wednesday as Accredited Home Lenders , HSBC Holdings and Lehman Brothers announced job cuts, and concern mounted about the longer-term impact on the economy.

Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNBC he believes the Federal Reserve was lax in its responsibilities by not preventing the surge of subprime mortgage loans. Dodd also said he will meet with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday morning.

The company ran ads meant to reassure customers after several armed with withdrawal slips descended on branches last Thursday and Friday, worried that their money was not safe even with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. backing.

Thornburg Mortgage's president Larry Goldstone told CNBC Monday that there is still a crisis of investor confidence in the mortgage market but that the residential mortgage lender expects to be profitable.

A strong rally during the final half-hour of trading erased much of Wall Street's losses in another volatile trading session. The rebound was led by recently battered financial shares on optimism regulators may let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. mortgage funding companies, play a bigger role in steadying the ailing industry.

Keep an eye on big commercial banks like Citi, JP Morgan and Bank of America: They have extensive retail banking operations and are far more diversified and better at laying off risk (often to foreign banks) than the investment banks

Despite ongoing mortgage market turmoil, regulators for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have given no signal they will lift a cap on the companies home loan holdings, and opposition to such a move still appears firm within the Bush administration.

Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of home loan funding, increased its holdings of risky subprime loans in 2006 while its profits fell that year, the company said Thursday in a long-delayed report.